This spring has seen the explosion of videos made by instructors specifically for their students. I’ve never seen so many before and no wonder. This type of video has become so simple to make, that they are used for just about everything from feedback for student assignments, weekly overviews and recaps, mini lectures, guest lectures, and power points to how-to examples.
Is there an ideal length for these videos?
There isn’t much academic research on ideal video length in education, and what there is becomes dated quite quickly. A google search leads to two main types of results: reports compiled from user surveys published by companies that sell education video products and guidelines created by media companies whose clients want to increase their social media/ media channel presence. The data from educational video companies can be useful. But unless you are planning on becoming the next Crash Course, you can safely ignore social media guidelines.
According to a 2015 report by Kaltura, a video firm, instructional designers such as myself, and faculty have very different ideas for ideal video length.
When asked about optimal video length,71% of respondents state that the optimal educational video should be no longer than 10 minutes, but there are still many that believe 10-30 minutes is ideal.It is interesting to compare the responses of educators with those of instructional designers: while both groups have a majority response of 5-10 minutes, 79% of instructional designers believe video should be under 10 minutes, and a further 16% opt for 10-30 minute videos as being ideal, whereas over a quarter of educators feel that a10-30 minute video is optimal(28%).Perhaps those who opted for 10-30 minute videos are influenced by the popularity of the 18-minute TED video format.
Perhaps, ideal video length is not one particular number after all. Perhaps it is more of a formula. Tech Smith, a maker of screen capture products, suggests instead– as I do– that the ideal video length depends in particular on the content itself. I once suggested to a math professor that his videos were too long at 45 minutes plus. But he defended their length insisting that he couldn’t personally demonstrate the complex problem in less time. In this case, yes, maybe 45 minutes is correct ( I still recommended an intermission!).
But I wouldn’t agree that this is true for say, a 45 minute anthropology lecture. In this case, I would recommend the faculty divide her lecture into smaller segments based on topic transitions. The shorter videos help students understand the content, organize their time, and make it much easier to find that content again. A student doesn’t want to review 40 minutes of video just to find the three minutes she needed to rewatch.
Techsmith puts it this way:
….your content should inform the length of your video.
Before creating any piece of content (not just video), ask yourself two questions:
- What do my viewers need to know?
- How can I best cover this topic in the most efficient and useful way?
Then, create a video that does that. That may seem simplistic, but…. you can turn those questions into a winning formula for determining the best length for your video.
